Manatee looks to Saunders as interim schools chief

Tuesday

School Board to negotiate with Cynthia Saunders, deputy superintendent for instruction, about interim superintendent post

BRADENTON — When Manatee Schools superintendent Diana Greene departs for Duval County, her top deputy will most likely step into her role while the School Board searches for a replacement.

On Tuesday night the board voted to enter negotiations with Cynthia Saunders, the current deputy superintendent for instruction, to serve as interim superintendent starting on June 30.

Saunders said her goal was to maintain the district's progress, particularly on major projects underway, including the rollout of a new software system that will debut on July 1 and the opening of three new schools next August. The district will have an influx of funding from new property tax revenue, and Greene has said her successor's top priority should be ensuring the new revenue is properly spent.

"The goal would be maintaining what is in place right now," Saunders said. "I would want to make minimal changes."

The theme of the board's discussion was naming an interim who could maintain positive progress.

Florida School Board Association executive director Andrea Messina attended the workshop and meeting to advise the board on the best steps moving forward. She cautioned them against limiting their future options by not allowing the interim superintendent to apply for the full-time role, a recommendation Greene made at the last board meeting. The board did not discuss this requirement during Tuesday's discussion and voted to enter into negotiations with Saunders for the position.

"I would never recommend that you would preclude anyone from applying at a later date," Messina said. "Also, it is the most insightful and information-gathering interview you will ever be able to conduct."

Saunders said she would accept the role of interim superintendent regardless of whether she was allowed to apply for the full-time role. She has been the deputy superintendent of instruction since 2015, after serving as executive director of secondary schools since 2013.

"She's tough. She's known for being tough," said board vice chair Gina Messenger. "And I like that."

The board voted 4-1 in favor of Saunders, with board member Dave Miner being the lone no vote. Miner said he thought the board was acting hastily, and he favored keeping Saunders in her role as deputy superintendent and appointing current audit committee chairwoman Susan Agruso, a former superintendent of a New York school district. He said he wanted to avoid the domino effect of replacing district leadership that takes place with internal promotions, and he said Agruso had proven a willingness to ask tough questions and brought strong credentials.

Oversight committee

A new finance oversight committee, which met for the first time earlier this month, is already creating controversy. The School Board established the committee to assure the public that new tax revenue was spent appropriately, but Miner said during at its first meeting the committee was given sweeping review power over every aspect of the district's finances.

Messenger, Miner and Kennedy expressed varying degrees of dismay over the committee's first meeting.

"This thing has already gone off the rails," Kennedy said.

Messenger told board Chairman Scott Hopes she believes he has made promises to the members of the committee that the School Board did not approve.

"We spent hours talking about it, and then to go into the first meeting and hear things this board did not agree on is insulting to our time," Messenger said.

She said the 15-member committee was already being divided into subcommittees and tasked with financial oversight on areas not involving the referendum funds.

Hopes, who had initially opposed the referendum, eventually supported it, partially on the grounds that an oversight committee would be established. He warned the board that to restrict the oversight power of the committee would send a message that the board was hiding use of referendum funds.

"I gotta tell you, I am going to have a lot of people tomorrow telling me 'I told you so,'" Hopes said, with people saying "you shouldn't have come out in support of need for these revenues because as soon as it gets passed this board is going to retract the commitment they made to the public."

The board approved a motion made by Miner to clarify the role of the financial oversight committee to align with the original intent of the board. It is not yet clear how the resolution could impact the trajectory of the committee, but based on Messenger's description of the meeting, the scope will be reeled in and the power of the committee refocused to simply monitor the use of referendum funds.

Hopes and Messenger opposed. Messenger did not explain why she opposed Miner's motion, but indicated she disagreed with some of the specifics of his wording.

Voters approved the new tax by a narrow margin in March, but the language about installing a new committee to oversee the use of the funds did not get included on the ballot. Manatee Supervisor of Elections Mike Bennett said it was due to a time crunch to get the ballots printed, although emails obtained by the Herald-Tribune showed that Bennett's office had been informed of the ballot language within time to print.

Board general counsel Jim Dye said at the time that even though the language was omitted from the ballot, the board's intent to establish an oversight committee still stood.

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